Abstract
Since 9/11, enforcement officers in many EU countries have made extensive use of anti-terrorism preventive powers by carrying out repeated identity controls targeted at people they presumed to be Muslim. Individuals were frequently stopped in the streets, as well as in places considered to be likely terrorist targets, such as metro systems, train stations, commercial centres, predominantly Muslim neighbourhoods, halal restaurants and mosques (Open Society Institute 2009).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
La repubblica. Preso a Roma il quarto terrorista delle bombe del 21 luglio a Londra. 30th July 2005. Available at: http://www.repubblica.it/2005/g/dirette/sezioni/esteri/metrolon/ven29/index.html [Accessed on 2nd September 2009].
- 2.
Italian Government Legislative Decree 155, July 27th 2005: Misure urgenti per il contrasto del terrorismo internazionale.
- 3.
I refer to owners of the activity, in the sense that owners owe the license released from the Ministry of Communication to manage. Owners of the shop itself are generally Italian citizens instead.
- 4.
In derogation of the personal data protection law. See articles 122(1) and 123(3) in Italian Government Legislative Decree 196, June 30th 2003: Codice in materia di protezione dei dati personali.
- 5.
Ministry of Interior Decree 190, 16th August 2005: Misure di preventive acquisizione di dati anagrafici dei soggetti che utilizzano postazioni pubbliche non vigilate per comunicazioni telematiche ovvero punti di accesso ad Internet utilzzando tecnologia senza fili.
- 6.
The decree required them to store data for 2 years, till December 31st 2007. As the decree was reconfirmed at the end of 2007, it was made necessary for data to be further stored for the period the decree would be extended, that is to say till December 31st 2009.
- 7.
According to the requirements of Law 189/2002, known as Bossi-Fini, permanent residence permits need renewal every 5 years. In order for them to be renewed applicants must have a job. At the same time, if their contract is over, it is difficult to get another one without a residence permit. According to an officer of the Chamber of Commerce in Verona (telephone interview March 18th 2010) most aspirant phone-centre owners that enquired about launching an entrepreneurial activity said they urgently needed to do so because their residence permit was expiring.
- 8.
While municipalities have specific offices that offer this kind of support to immigrants, they do not have the resources to cope with the high demand on their services.
- 9.
These include shops whereby phone centre services are associated with other services such as food store, dvd store, etc.).
- 10.
Italian Government Law 94, July 15th 2009: Disposizioni in materia di sicurezza pubblica.
- 11.
‘This is the chief of the Questura’, the provincial headquarter of the National police force.
- 12.
The main functions of the Local Police are traffic control and the enforcement of local laws relating to commerce, legal residence and other administrative duties. In the last two decades, the Local Police has been increasingly entrusted with tasks relating to urban safety—included in integrated plans for security—carried out in coordination with the National Police. The Chief of the Local Police, the Comandante della Polizia Locale reports to the Municipality.
- 13.
This is a specific Department of the National Police that is responsible over the control and repression of illegal and administrative activities that fall within the complex area of communication, including first and foremost illegal activities perpetrated through the Internet.
- 14.
La Gazzetta. Phone center, un boom pieno di ombre. 4th August 2005, 1; La Gazzetta. I gravi problemi di ordine pubblico connessi alle attività di questi esercizi, scrive Leoni, di Forza Italia, un dato di fatto oggettivo a incontestabile. 28th November 2006, 10; L’Informazione. Sono un disagio per i cittadini: rispettino le regole o chiudano. 27th June 2008; L’Arena. Giro di vite. Approvata dal Consiglio regionale la legge per questi esercizi commerciali, spesso fonte di proteste phone center, ecco le nuove regole. 8th November 2007, 15; L’Arena. Degrado. Due quartieri accomunati dagli stessi problemi come l’eccessiva presenza di stranieri irregolari e di negozi in precarie condizioni igieniche. Tombetta? Peggio di Veronetta. 28th September 2007, 8; L’Arena. Violazioni anche all’edilizia. Proseguono senza sosta i controlli nei phone center e nei negozi di merce e alimenti etnici della città. 21st July 2007, 12. [Accessed on 2nd September 2009].
- 15.
Considering his team collaborates with that of the Dirigente della Polizia Amministrativa, it is reasonable to hold his answer as rather informed, in spite of the fact that specific competence on terrorism does not rest with the Local Police.
- 16.
It was certainly less tacit in the case of Verona where phone centres were actually explicitly indicated in the 2007 winning coalition’s electoral programme as places ‘at risk’ because of the presence of undocumented. See Linee programmatiche di governo per il quinquennio 2007-2012. Session October 24th 2007, 79. Available at: http://portale.comune.verona.it/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=9229 [Accessed on 11th January 2008].
- 17.
These are specific bodies of the National police force.
- 18.
As spelt out in Ministerial Decree 2005, the violation of article one—which requires owners to identify and register customers—can result in the delivery of a fine of more than 1000 €; if they fail to do so for three times, as anticipated, their shop can be confiscated for 3 days or more.
- 19.
This is all the more true for Italy, where police forces are not subjected to the principle of accountability and whereby there is hardly any system for monitoring discrimination by police forces.
- 20.
As spelt out in Ministerial Decree 2005, the violation of article one—which requires owners to identify and register customers—can result in the delivery of a fine of more than 1000 €; if they fail to do so for three times their shop can be confiscated for 3 days or more.
- 21.
Although checking residence permits is a task reserved to police officers, several owners were fined because undocumented were found in their shop, some even holding a valid passport.
References
Anderson, B., Gibney, M. J., & Paoletti, E. (2012). Citizenship, deportation and the boundaries of belonging. Citizenship Studies, 15(5), 547–563.
Bacon, C. (2005). The evolution of immigration detention in the UK: The involvement of private prison companies. Working Paper 27, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford.
Burridge, A. (2011). Differential criminalisation under operation streamline: challenges to freedom of movement and humanitarian aid provision in the US-Mexico borderlands. Refuge, 26(2), 78–91.
Cornelisse, G. (2010). Immigration detention and the territoriality of universal rights. In De Genova, N., & Peutz, N. (eds.) The deportation regime: sovereignty, space and freedom of movement. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Costas, I. (2009). ID checks and police raids: Ethnic profiling in Central Europe. In justice initiatives ethnic profiling by police in Europe. June 2005. Cit. Open Society Institute (2009) Ethnic profiling in the European Union: Pervasive, Ineffective, and Discriminatory. Open Society Justice Initiative.
De Genova, N. (2002). Migrant ‘illegality’ and deportability in everyday life. Annual review of Anthropology, 31, 419–447.
De Genova, N. (2007). The production of culprits: from deportability to detain ability in the aftermath of ‘Homeland Security. Citizenship Studies, 11(5), 421–448.
De Genova, N., & Peutz, N. (2010) (Eds.), The deportation regime: sovereignty, space and freedom of movement. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Ellermann, A. (2006). Street-level democracy: How immigration bureaucrats manage public opposition. West European politics, 29(2), 293–309.
Ellermann, A. (2008). The limits of unilateral migration control: Deportation and interstate cooperation. Government and Opposition, 43(2), 168–189.
Ellermann, A. (2010). Undocumented migrants and resistance in the liberal state. Politics & Society, 38, 408.
Gibney, M. J. (2008). Asylum and the expansion of deportation in the United Kingdom. Government and opposition, 43(2), 139–143.
Istat (2010). Dati socio-demografici dei Comuni Italiani. Available at: http://demo.istat.it [Accessed on 1st February 2010].
Kanstroom, D. (2007). Deportation nation: Outsiders in American history. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Krause, M. (2008). Undocumented migrants: An Arendtian perspective. European journal of political theory, 7(3), 331–348.
Lago Dal, A. (1999). Non Persone L’esclusione dei migranti in una società globale. Milano: Feltrinelli.
Office of the High Commissioner for human rights (2003). Digest of jurisprudence of the UN and regional organizations on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism.
Open Society Institute (2009). Ethnic profiling in the European Union: Pervasive, ineffective, and discriminatory. Open Society Justice Initiative.
Palidda, S. (2008). Mobilità umana. Cortina R. Milano: Editore.
Petrillo, A. (2000). La Città perduta. Roma: Dedalo Edizioni.
Quassoli, F. (2004). Making the neighbourhood safer: social alarm, police practices and immigrant exclusion in Italy. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 30(6), 1163–1181.
Schuster, L. (2005). A sledgehammer to crack a nut: Deportation, detention and dispersal in Europe. Social policy & administration, 39(6), 606–621.
Talavera, V., Nunez-Mchiri, G., & Heyman J. (2010). Deportation in the US-Mexico borderlands: anticipation, experience and memory. In N. De Genova & N. Peutz (Eds.), The deportation regime: sovereignty, space and freedom of movement. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Varela, A. (2009). Residency documents for all! Notes to understand the movement of migrants in Barcelona. Refuge: Canada’s periodical on refugees, 26(2), 121–132.
Wacquant, L. (2000). Parola d’ordine: tolleranza zero. La trasformazione dello stato penale nella società neoliberale. Milano: Interzone Feltrinelli.
Zincone, G. (2000). (Eds). Primo rapporto sull’integrazione degli immigrati in Italia. Bologna:Il Mulino.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Semprebon, M. (2012). Between Routine Police Checks and ‘Residual Practices of Expulsion Power’: The Impacts of the Anti-Terrorism Law on Phone Centres and the Resistance of Owners. An Italian Ethnography in the ‘Emergency Season’. In: Anderson, B., Gibney, M., Paoletti, E. (eds) The Social, Political and Historical Contours of Deportation. Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5864-7_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5864-7_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5863-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5864-7
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)